Enterprise, stream-based, information management system

ABSTRACT

Disclosed is a computer program product and method that operate an enterprise information system of at least one server and a number or personal computers communicating with each other and with the server. The program product and method create object models that have a consistent structure from and about information assets that are of diverse types and come from diverse software, and display browse cards about the information assets in a time-ordered stream, together with glance views related to the document object models. The glance views are displayed essentially in real time in response to passing a cursor over respective browse cards on the display.

BACKGROUND AND SUMMARY

[0001] Traditional information management systems store and retrievedocuments on the basis of attributes such as the name and storagelocation of a document. This, however, can get very unwieldy in typicalusage, as more and more names and locations of documents become a partof the storage and retrieval scheme. Although it is possible in somecases to search or order documents by other attributes, such as contentand time of creation or revision, it may still be necessary to specifywhich file folders, directories, or storage devices to search. If a userno longer remembers how a particular item of information was stored in atraditional system, it may be difficult or impractical to retrieve itefficiently.

[0002] In an effort to alleviate these and other concerns withtraditional storage and retrieval systems, and to provide a moreeffective and natural approach that better fits the way people tend towork with and think of items of information, a new system describedherein uses approaches that rely primarily on an intuitive,time-associated way of dealing with information. The system isstream-based in that it creates time-ordered streams of informationitems or assets, beginning with the oldest and continuing throughcurrent and on to future items. An information item or asset in thissystem can be any type—a file, an email message, bookmark, IRL, memo,draft, scanned image, calendar note, photo, shopping list, voicemail,rolodex or business card, a video clip, etc. When a user tunes in astream, ordinarily a receding parade of documents appears on the screen.The closest are nearest in time. When a new document arrives, forexample when a new email message comes in, it appears at the head of thestream, at the front of the parade. (When a newer message arrives, itsteps in front of the parade.) Further-away documents are older.

[0003] Ordinarily, a user stands at the line current in time and looksinto the past, but the stream also extends into the future. If the userhas a meeting next Tuesday at 10 AM, a note to that effect goes into thestream's future, and a note about a meeting Wednesday goes in the streamin front of the note about next Tuesday. Documents in the stream flowsteadily onward, as time does. Documents in the future part of thestream flow toward the present; documents in the present flow toward thepast. Newly arriving documents push older documents further into thepast.

[0004] The receding parade of documents is an efficient way to presentinformation on a computer screen. The display uses foreshortening for aperspective effect to pack more information into limited space. For easybrowsing, when the user touches a document on the screen with thecursor, a summary of that document with a thumbnail vies appearsimmediately, without requiring clicking or other user action, as abrowse card—a dedicated small window besides the receding parade of timeordered documents. The user controls the displayed stream with VCR-typecontrols, to move forward or back, to go toward or to the beginning orthe end of time in the stream, to now, or to any date or time, past orfuture.

[0005] An item of information in a stream need not be given a name, or adesignation of storage location. In a traditional system, a requirementthat all documents have names can have implications beyond the necessityof inventing and remembering names. For example, emails may not havenames of their own but may need to be stashed inside some other file; tosearch for an email the user may need to go to this special mail fileand search that file. In the system disclosed here, items of informationsuch as emails do not need to be named and can be searched along withany other types of information items.

[0006] Searches in the disclosed system can be by a combination of threemethods, search, browse, and time-order.

[0007] Time-order in itself often makes it possible to locate documents.Often the user needs a document that showed up recently, this morning,or two days ago, or at some time that can be pinned down with somedegree of accuracy. Time-order together with browsing through the stream(and its glance views) makes it possible to glance quickly through thedocuments that are from the approximate time of interest and quicklypull out the right one. (While traditional systems can time-orderdocuments it often is difficult to intersperse in the list all recentemails, news updates, bulletin-board postings, URLs and other documents,let alone voicemail messages. Without a browse feature for a stream asdisclosed herein, such a list can be of little value, whereas withbrowse and an all-encompassing stream that gets updated promptly withnew material, one can sweep over large numbers of documents, getinstance glances (summary, thumbnail, etc.) of each and find the rightone fast.)

[0008] When searching in a stream in the disclosed system, the user getsa new stream—a substream. One can search on any word or phrase, as everyword in every document is indexed, on document types and metadata, andon time-related data (e.g., show me all email from last March). If theuser searches for an entity called Schwartz Bottling, the new substreamwill the narrative or documentary history of all dealings with thatentity—first contacts, subsequent internal documents or communications,reports, calendar items, and so on.

[0009] A substream in the disclosed system is in some ways similar to afolder or directory in a traditional system. Instead of a “SchwartzBottling” folder in which the user has put documents by so naming them,he/she has created a substream with those document, and can save it forlater use or create it again as needed. The substream can do all afolder can but is much more powerful than a folder. A substream collectsdocuments automatically; the use r has to put documents in a folder byhand, one by one. A substream can persist in that it continues to trapnewly created or received documents that match it. If a user looks atthe “Schwartz Bottling” substream tomorrow, she/he may find it has grownto include a new email or other documents that were interspersedautomatically. A substream can tell a story, and include the future. Asubstream is non-exclusive, in that a document can belong to manysubstreams. A folder in a traditional system imposes on computers manyof the obsolete, irrelevant limitations of a physical filing cabinetdrawer or folder. A substream is an organizational tool that can makemore efficient use of computer characteristics than an analog of filingan retrieving physical documents.

[0010] One reason for the efficiency of the disclosed system is that ithandles all types of different documents, or items of information, inessentially the same way, even if the document is of a type or formatunknown to the system. Each document when created, received or otherwiseencountered is treated consistently according to a universal DocumentObject Model (DOM). As described below in more detail, the systemprocesses the document to create its Document Object Modes that includesvarious aids such as significant information about the documentincluding items such as summary, type of document, thumbnail of thedocument, who is the document' owner, who has permission to access thedocument, keywords, command options, time stamp, index, etc. Thiscreation of a document's DOM is done automatically, although the usercan aid the process. It can be done by a translator agent orprogrammatically.

[0011] The system creates a glance view or browse card of each documentthat has the same overall format to make searching for and working witha document more intuitive but also is specific to the documents in manyways. One important difference from traditional systems is that thebrowse card has command buttons that match the type of documents. Whilethe command set for traditional systems may use the same command buttonset for different types of documents, in the disclosed system thecommand set that shows in the displayed browse card is specific to thedocument—it has the unique combination of command buttons that makesense for that document. The command buttons unique to the browse cardcan be shown on the card itself or separately.

[0012] The browse card comes on the screen automatically when the cursoris over the corresponding document in the displayed stream; the userneed not take any other action such as clicking on the document ortaking an action calling a program that can open or work with thedocument.

[0013] The universal DOM of a document is created automatically as a newdocument of any type is added to the basic stream of information items.It is done for any existing, legacy documents, when the system is firstinstalled on a computer, and is done as any additional documents arecreated or otherwise come in. Metadata such as owner, date, accesspermission and keywords are created as part of this automatic process.

[0014] Access permission is a part of a document's metadata, sopermission levels need have the constraints of traditional informationhandling systems where a group or an individual typically has access toall documents in a particular folder or directory, or has a particulartype of access to a folder.

[0015] Search results are integrated into a substream, at the rightplace, when and as they become available. The user can start using anincomplete substream and watch it build up. If the search must extendover a number of computers or even servers, and some are unavailable atthe time, the results that come in when any become available areintegrated into the substream at the right places.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

[0016]FIG. 1 illustrates a screen that can serve as a default view whena software product according to a preferred embodiment is opened on acomputer; the labels that are added are not normally a part of thedisplayed screen.

[0017] FIGS. 2-8 are flowcharts illustrating processes in an example ofa preferred embodiment.

[0018]FIGS. 9 and 10 are examples of configurations in a preferredembodiment.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS

[0019]FIG. 1 illustrates a default screen seen on a PC or otherequipment working with the disclosed system. It can show up upon turningon the computer, or upon calling the disclosed system. As seen in FIG.1, the screen illustrates a receding stream of documents, with the mostrecent documents at the front. Passing the cursor over a document in thestream causes that document's “glance view” or “browse card” to appearon the screen. The glance view of a document is so labeled in FIG. 1.The screen also includes the following features appropriately labeled inFIG. 1: (a) the Search Field is an area in which the user can type oneor more words for which the system will search in documents (informationassets) in the displayed part of the stream and/or in additionalinformation assets that might not be displayed; (b) the Main Menu iswhere the user sets preferences, finds help information, logs out,and/or performs other operations; (c) the Header contains informationsuch as links, command buttons and choice boxes used to navigate; (d)the Stream View Options allow the user to configure the presentation ofthe stream of information assets; (e) the Document Glance allows quickscanning of information assets that are visible on the screen, andpresentation of more detailed information on the selected informationasset; (f) the Type Glyphs identify the nature of an information assetat a glance (e.g., a Word document); and (g) the Thumbnails is a graphicrepresentation of the type of document (e.g., an audio file, an email,an event, etc.). The User Guide published by the assignee hereof (a copyis submitted concurrently with the filing of this application with anIDS form) further describes the operation of a relevant example and,together with the programs contained in the compact disc submittedherewith, provides a more detailed disclosure of a preferred embodiment.

[0020] Certain particularly novel features of the disclosed system aredescribed below by reference to flowcharts and block diagrams. Moredetailed information on a particular example of implementation of theseand other features of the system are evident from the software on theattached compact disc, which is the best mode known to the inventors atthe time of filing this patent application.

[0021]FIG. 2 illustrates creation of a universal data object model of adocuments in accordance with a preferred embodiment. This is animportant part of the disclosed system that helps make possible theefficient handling of heterogeneous document types in a manner thatusers find easy and intuitive. A document object model (DOM) can bethought of as a document shell of the information asset (IA) thatcontains, anon other items, a thumbnails of the information asset,permission rights, and metadata. The DOM is created from the IA and isstored in a desktop computer and/or a server, either independently ofthe IA itself or with a replica (copy) of the IA. From there, the systemmakes the DOM (with a pointer to its IA or replicated IA) to the desktopuser or to users that have access to the document through some computerconnection.

[0022] As seen in FIG. 2, the process of creating a DOM starts with theuploading at step S201 of information assets (documents) through abrowser or a client software application, or step S202 with uploadingusing a software application agent called Doc Feeder in a specificembodiment of the disclosed system. At the following steps, which neednot be performed in the order of their description below, a DOM of theIA is created. The IA uploaded at step S201 or S202 can comprisestructured or unstructured data. At step S203 the process determines thecontent type of the IA, e.g., if it is a type that the systemrecognizes. If it is, the system includes content-type specific metadatain the document's DOM: MIME/content type information, a glyph of theapplication that creates/views the content-type, and/or the systemassigns other content-type data to the DOM shell. If step S203determines that the IA is an unknown content type, it assigns to the DOMa content-type for “unknown content-type.” Step S204 extracts text fromthe information asset, for example, in a text document, this stepextracts the text of the document. Step S205 extracts text that may notbe within but may be associated with the information asset, for example,the time stamp of the document, the owner of the document, and possiblyother textual information that is or can be associated with thedocument. Other possible examples are attributes of the IA such as filereference path, database/repository path, file metrics such as size,encryption, other identification information, etc. Step S206 generates athumbnail picture of the IA. The thumbnail can be a reduced-size pictureof the document, for example of the first page, and can be converted toa graphic image format. Other examples of thumbnails are JPEG, MPEG,BMP, GIF, AVI, or other still or moving image files representative ofsome aspect of the IA. Step S207 produces an automatic summary of theIA, e.g., a replica of its first 500 words, or first 10 sentences, orsome other information copied or otherwise derived from the IA. StepS208 creates a permission list unique to the IA that defines the ownerof the IA (e.g., its creator), and lists of people or entities andgroups that can access the IA or the DOM of that IA for reading and/orwriting purposes. This permission list can be defined by the user forthe particular IA or for a class of IAs, or can be createdautomatically, e.g., by software agents called Doc Feeder or Crawlingagent in a particular embodiment of the described system, or byprogrammatic mapping such as LDAP, Active Directory, NTDS or some othermapping. Alternatively, at least for some documents, the permission listcan be default setting.

[0023] Step S209 assigns keywords to the information asset. The softwareagents Doc Feeder or Crawler can assign keywords, and the user canmanually assign or add keywords. Step S210 generates and assigns to theIA a Globally Unique Document ID, e.g. as 64 bit code unique to the IA.Step S211 determines and assigns to the IA document operations that areunique to the IA. Depending on the IA, these operations or commandbuttons can be basic, such as “View” and “Reply.” They can becontent-specific, such as “Play” for multimedia information assets. Theycan be solution-specific, such as “Fax” of Purchase.” They can beuser-specific, such as “Delete” allowed to only certain users. Animportant point is that the operations or command buttons assigned to aparticular IA match the IA and need not be the same for differentinformation assets, as is the typical case with traditional informationmanagement systems. Step S212 assigns optional operations or commandbuttons to the IA. They include, for example, commands to send the IA toan optical character recognition (OCR) service that can be a separateservice, IP, HTTP-based or an asynchronous operation. Alternatively, theoptional operation can be another OCR operation that can perform OCR ona selected part of the IA, or on digital graphic portions or can involvemulti-part associations. At step S213, the information asset issubmitted to an indexing engine (asynchronous service). Again, this canbe a separate service, IP, HTTP-based. This step can index all orselected fields of the IA, including but not limited to the IA summary,title, permissions, IA text, keywords, time, metadata, and content-type.At step S214 the DOM created as described above is submitted to astorage service. This can be a database that is a file reference with apointer to the actual location of the IA on a network or a local filesystem, or it can be a database that contains the actual IA in arepository such as a user's computer or a centralized repository. Thedocument object model so generated is made available for use in stepS215.

[0024]FIGS. 3 and 4 illustrate methods of creating document objectmodels from information assets. As seen in FIG. 3, three type ofinformation assets are involved—new information assets 301, modifiedinformation assets 301, and deleted information assets 303. All come toa file system 304. At step S305, agents specific to the disclosedembodiment of the system known as Scopeware 2.0 translate the IA into aDOM, i.e., create a DOM shell for the IA, with attributes as discussedin connection with FIG. 2. At step S306, Scopeware agents translate theIA modifications into an updated DOM and time-stamp the change so thenew time-stamp becomes a part of the DOM and the modified IA can beplaces in the stream of documents at a place reflecting the newtime-stamp. At step S307, Scopeware agents execute actions for removingthe deleted IA from the repository of documents. The display, such asthat seen in FIG. 1 reflects the actions takes at steps S305, S306 andS307. As a result of step S305, the stream on the display shows at 308the new IA (provided the time period where the new IA fits is beingdisplayed). As a result of step S306, the modified IA appears at 309 inits correct place in the displayed receding stream of documents. As aresult of step S307, the deleted documents is removed at 310 from thedisplayed stream, and the remaining. In FIG. 4, a programmaticinformation system received new, modified and deleted information assetsfor storage and distribution to appropriate translation agents asillustrated. In other respects, the FIG. 4 arrangement corresponds tothat of FIG. 3, so the description of corresponding portions will not berepeated.

[0025] At least some of the document object model created as describedabove becomes a part of a glance view or browse card of the typeillustrated in FIG. 1. An important feature of the system disclosed hereis to conveniently display such a glance view in a natural andintuitively accepted way to facilitate operations.

[0026] Traditional user interfaces for computers typically present listsor graphical icons of “documents” (including but not limited to computerfiles, emails, web pages, images and other types of electronicinformation). These lists and icon displays provide only a limitedamount of information about the document—typically, title andapplication type only, although additional information as well in somecases. This can make it difficult for users to identify the documentwithout downloading and/or opening the document with its associatedapplication. For example, in Windows 2000, the user interface displays asmall temporary pop-up window of the document's title, application type,author and size when the user hovers his cursor on the document icon;however, the pop-up window appears only after a brief delay, usually 1-2seconds and is for documents that are on the screen at the time, whichtend to be a small part of the many documents typically stored in oraccessible through a user's computer.

[0027] In contrast, the disclosed system creates a pop-up window forheterogeneous documents of known and unknown application types thatappears instantly, as perceived by the user, as he/she hovers the cursorover the document's representation in the user interface. In the exampleof FIG. 1, this representation is an index card in a cascading flow ofoverlapping index cards (called “browse cards”), and the pop-up windowis called a “glance view”. This glance view not only contains thedocument's title, application type and owner, but also may contain richmultimedia cues (such as a thumbnail image of the first page of thedocument, a WAV or MP3 preview of an audio file, or an animated GIFpreview of a video file), text summaries and document operationsspecific to the document's application type and access permissions. Forexample, if the user has write permission for a document, the “Edit”operation will be visible and available; however, if not, the Editoperation will not be visible or available. These document operationsare interactive, allowing users to select available operations directly.

[0028] Referring to FIG. 5 for an illustration of the instantaneouslydynamic, tailored, and interactive document glance view feature of thedisclosed system, at S501 a user hovers his or her computer cursor overa document's browse card. Essentially instantly, at least as perceivedby the user, and without any mouse clicking or other action on the partof the user, step S502 processes the information needed for a glanceview to appear on the screen, and at S503 the glance view appears nextto the browse card, using a technology such as Dynamic HTML. If the userclicks on a document's browse card, as detected by the test at stepS504, and as executed by the user at S505, step S506 causes the glanceview to become fixed and step S507 causes it to remain in the display.The glance view does not change until the user clicks on anotherdocument's browse card. If the user does not click on any browse card,as determined by the test of step S504, the glance view will instantlychange as the user moves his cursor over other browse cards, to reflectthe glance view of the underlying browse card. If the user has clickedon a browse card to fix the glance view as a stationary window, the usercan then select any of the visible and available document operations, bytaking the “yes” branch of step S508 and selecting at S509 an availableoperation (as earlier described, the operations or command buttons thatshow are specific to the document). At step S510 the system executes theselected operation (command) and the display reflects this at S511. Ifat step S508 the user takes the “no” branch, she can continue ro hoverthe cursor over the stream of browse cards and repeat the process, atstep S512. If at S504 the system determines that the user has notclicked to fix a glance view, the glance view information essentiallyinstantly changes at S513 as the user moves the cursor over other browsecards, and the new glance views appear on the screen at S514.

[0029]FIG. 6 illustrates a process involving another important featureof the disclosed system—granular permissions for access to informationassets that allows clients to receive seamless and uniform access tocontents without necessitating changes to existing network security andaccess rights. In traditional systems, a network administratorstypically would grant access to specific network drives and filefolders. The permission typically would allow a user to access theentire folder or drive, or would deny access to an entire folder ordrive, rather than to a particular information asset or document.

[0030] In the disclosed system, each information asset is accessiblethrough specific access permission for each client or designated groupof clients. Examples of access stage permissions are read, write, andaware. Read permissions allow a client to view the full informationasset. Write permissions allow the client to view and edit the document.Aware permission alerts the client that an information asset exists, forexample by providing a document shell in the client's stream ofdocuments, but does not allow the client to view or edit the document. Agroup of clients who want to collaborate on a project or event canestablish a designated group that can be assigned permissions to relvantdocuments for the project or event. Thus, each member can receivereal-time additions to his or her stream of documents and informationassets are posted. The clients can assign permission to the other groupmembers themselves, by so designating the appropriate documents to beshared, without involving a network administrator. Some documents, suchas personal to-do lists, can be accessible only to a specified user, butthe user can change this at any time to allow access, full or partial,to other designated persons. Assignments of permissions for access canbe done as granularly as an individual client level or individualdocument, or as diffuse as a departmental or enterprise level.

[0031] As seen in FIG. 6, an information asset 601 can have permissionlevels assigned to it in several ways. At step S602, a software agentsuch as Doc Feeder can automatically assign permissions; at step S603 aprogrammatic system such as SDAP, Active Directory, Access ControlLists, NT DS, of some other system assigns permissions to the document;and/or at step S604 the user manually assigns permissions to thedocument. Examples of processes relevant to different types ofpermissions are: step S605 grants access to all public users of thesystem; step S606 assigns permissions to groups as illustrated; stepS607 assigns permissions to specific groups as illustrated, and stepS608 freezes permissions and does not allow the document to be changed.The display, of the type illustrated in FIG. 1, can provide informationrepresentative of the permissions, as illustrated at steps S609 thorughS612 in FIG. 6.

[0032] Another important feature of the disclosed system is illustratedin FIG. 7 and pertains to integrating search results from distributedsearches. In traditional systems, search requests in a client/servermodel with a central index usually return a single, well-defined resultsset. In a peer-to-peer network, however, search results may come back tothe “Source” computer (the computer that issues the search query) in ahaphazard manner because of network latency (variable traffic speed andbandwidth across a distributed network) and variable peer presence (peercomputers can be turned on and off, or removed from network at times).

[0033] The disclosed system asynchronous responses to a distributedquery across a peer-to-peer network of computers to integrate theresults from diverse sources, arriving at different times, andcomprising diverse types of documents, into a single unified resultsset. One preferred embodiment leverages the time-ordered presentationinterface earlier described in so that search results are integratedinto a time-ordered stream according to each document's originaltime-stamp, regardless of when the document's search results set wasreceived by the Source computer.

[0034] As seen in FIG. 7, at step 701 a user at a Source computerselects peer computers (“Peers”) across which the distributed searchwill be performed. If the test at S703 determines that there is nocentral registry with peer hookup, and the test at S704 determines thereis no user-specified IP address of peers, the process returns to S701,where the user can specify addresses or they can be provided in someother way. The central registry with lookup of Peers can involveOnline/offline status, IP/DNS resolution Service and Optionalpublic/private key authentication. When the test at S703 or at S704leads to the “yes” branch, at step S705 the Source computer sends out asearch request that travels to each selected Peer in the network. AtS706, each Peer that receives the search request queries its index fordocuments that match the search criteria, and at S707 the peer computerthen sends its results set back to the Source computer. The response canbe XML-based, a binary byte stream, or an in-band and out-of-bandtransfer. At S708 the Source computer takes the results set from eachPeer and builds a single collective results set. In a preferredembodiment, this collective results set is organized as a time-orderedstream of documents, as seen in FIG. 1. This can involves an on-the-flybrowser combination with XML & XSL with time-sort algorithm, XML topresentation layer with time-sort algorithm, and in-band and out-of-bandtransfer. Improtantly, at S709, the Source computer continues to expandthis collective results set, essentially in real time as it receivesadditional results sets from Peers until all Peers have responded orsome other relevant event has taken place. At S710, the collectiveresults are displayed as soon as results have come in at the Sourcecomputer, and the display is updated as additional results come in, evenwhen a Peer that was off-line comes on line and sends results at a latertime.

[0035] Yet another feature of the disclosed system is a particularlyconvenient tri-state tree. In a single scrolling tree directory of thecontents of a hard drive (or hard drives in a network), a user may wantto select “Parent Folders” (folders containing subfolders) and “ChildFolders” (subfolders contained within a folder) that can be furtheroperated on. This feature allows users to select folders in one or moreof the following combinations:

[0036] 1. All Parent Folders and all Child Folders

[0037] 2. Some Parent Folders and all their Child Folders

[0038] 3. Some Parent Folders and some of their Child Folders

[0039] 4. No Parent Folders and no Child Folders (the do nothing option)

[0040] This selection tree has useful application beyond the particularexample of information handling disclosed here; it can be used to selectfolders for any computer operation. For example, it can enable users todiscretely select software application or operating system components toinstall or remove.

[0041] A single scrolling tree directory of Parent and Child Foldersthat can expand and contract to show the contents of Parent and ChildFolders is known—Microsoft Windows Explorer is an example of one. ATri-State Selection mechanism also is known—Microsoft Add/Remove WindowsComponents is an example of another way of selecting various Parent andChild Folders. However, the Microsoft Add/Remove Windows Componentsfeature does not display all Parent and Child Folders within a singlescrolling tree directory; Child Folder and other contents of a ParentFolder are displayed in a separate window only after the user clicks ona Details button. In addition, only the contents of one Parent Foldercan be displayed at a time.

[0042] The Tri-State Selection Tree described here combines the elementsof a single scrolling tree directory with a tri-state selectionmechanism in a new and unique way to enable users to discretely selectspecific Parent and/or Child Folders all in one single view.

[0043] Referring to FIG. 8 for an illustration, at step S801 a user isfirst presented with a tree directory of the highest level of ParentFolders on a hard drive or network. At S802 the user can expand the treedirectory to show Child Folders by clicking on a plus/minus sign next toeach Parent Folder, and the directory so expands at S803. At S804, thedisplay shows a check box next to each Parent Folder (e.g., to the rightof the plus/minus sign). By default, all check boxes are empty,indicating that no Parent or Child Folders are selected. If at step S805the user clicks on a check box once, the process at step S806 selectsthe marked “/” Parent Folder but none of its Child Folders are selected,and step S807 shows this on the display. If at step S808 the user clicksthe check box a second time, the slash mark is replaced by an “X” andall the Child Folders' check boxes are then selected and grayed out atS809, indicating that all Child Folders are selected for that ParentFolder, and this is displayed at S810.

[0044] Thus, by expanding the tree and clicking on check boxes, the usercan systematically and efficiently select a discrete number of folderson which to perform an operation.

[0045] Yet another feature of the disclosed system is an arrangement ofa redundant array of inexpensive servers (RAIS). Processing of a largeset of information or document requires benefits of a centralizedarchitecture—reliability and scalability, and RAIS is a novel approachto provide benefits of a centralized architecture—namely reliability andscalability with numerous inexpensive computers. Thus, RAIS can deliveressentially infinite scalability, can allow inexpensive smallercomputers to be used to solve enterprise computational problems ratherthen expensive larger platforms, cheaper/faster.

[0046] For example, consider:

[0047] Set of Information, D, with specific documents D1, D2, D3; D{D1,D2, D3}

[0048] RAIS of N×N size here with N=3; RowN,CoIN

[0049] Replication factor is number of columns

[0050] Scalability factor is number of rows

[0051] 1. Here N=3, with 9 computers Col1 Col2 Col3 Row1 A A A Row2 B BB Row3 C C C

[0052] 2. To post a Document, Dn, one copy is sent to a sub-server ineach CoIN, so Col1 Col2 Col3 Row1 A(Dn) A(Dn) A(Dn) Row2 B B B Row3 C CC

[0053] 3. Thus Dn is replicated N times (N=3) and thus if Col1:Row1computer is unavailable there are two other computers with the same Dn.This is RAIS replication.

[0054] 4. To post a universe, or set of documents, D{D1, D2, D3}, canuse simple (round-robin) or complex (latency, closest path, spanningtree) routing, sending each document to a different RowN. Col1 Col2 Col3Row1 A(D1) A(D1) A(D1) Row2 B(D2) B(D2) B(D2) Row3 C(D3) C(D3) C(D3)

[0055] 5. Thus to reassemble the entire universe or set of documents, D,need to send a request to each RowN. To reconstruct, D, for an N×N RAISrequires N request/responses.

[0056] 6. Multiple smaller requests can be used instead of one mammothrequest. This reduces latency, bandwidth and process constraints. Thisis RAIS scalability.

[0057] 7. Note that any one of the computers in Row1 can be used tore-construct the total set D found in Col1. For example, if Row1:Col1computer is unavailable, then Row1:Col3 computer has a copy of the data.In fact, D is can be constructed from any arrangement that completes aCoIN.

[0058] 8. To increase either replication or scalability simply increaseN.

[0059] Scopeware Software Agents, either desktops or servers, can beinstalled on each computer in a RAIS matrix to achieve thisfunctionality.

[0060] The disclosed system can be implemented in a variety of ways interms of physical information storage—for example, physical informationstorage can be centralized or decentralized. Decentralized storage,physical storage of information with multiple servers and/or clients, ispossible through network agents called Doc Feeders, which may be locatedat a server or client level. The Doc Feeder allows a storage location ofa client, for example a file folder on a desktop hard drive, to beincluded in the system level data repository for use throughout anorganization or enterprise. Depending upon implementation, the DocFeeders can replicate the information asset (IA) to a server or maintaina constant pointer to the physical storage location while populating thesystem with the document object model (DOM). As earlier described, a DOMis a document shell of the IA that contains, among other items, athumbnail of the IA, permission rights, and metadata. A DOM is createdfrom the IA and placed on the Scopeware server, either independent ofthe IA or with a replication of the IA. From there, the Scopeware serverwill share the DOM (with constant pointer to the IA or replicated IA)with other connected system servers and clients in order to make the IAavailable to all clients connected to the network. Thus, the systemservers and network agents (Doc Feeders) act as document proxies forboth storage and retrieval of IAs.

[0061] In addition, the system servers within the network need not bephysically close in proximity. For example, a client in a truly globalorganization with locations and system servers on several continents canquery and retrieve sales results across all system servers and clientsthrough a federated search. In essence, the disclosed system creates avirtual store from all documents accessible to any system server orclient either centralized or decentralized.

[0062] The physical information storage of the disclosed system followsthree models: duplication, replication, and document reference. Theduplication model physically stores a duplicate IA on the parentScopeware server that was created by the client. Other clients pollingthe parent Scopeware server have full access to the IA, depending uponpermissions, whether or not the original document is available from itsnative storage location (i.e. client PC is turned off). The replicationmodel replicates the IA from the parent Scopeware server to the peerScopeware servers within a federated network. All clients within thefederated network have full access to the IA, depending uponpermissions, whether or not the original document is available from itsnative storage location (i.e. client PC is turned off). An example ofthe replication model is the concept of a redundant array of inexpensiveservers. This concept, which is described in detail in the distributedenterprise model, utilizes client machines in place of a singe server.The document reference model “parks” only a DOM of the IA on allScopeware servers and maintains a constant pointer to the actualphysical location of the IA rather than storing a full copy of the IA onthe Scopeware server. Other clients will only be able to gain access tothe IA when the physical location of the IA is connected to the network(i.e. client PC is turned on).

[0063] There are to primary types of streams in accordance with thedisclosed system: Bottom-Up and Top-Down. Through the use of bothBottom-Up and Top-Down methodologies, Scopeware creates a living streamfor the client with new DOMs appearing automatically as content arrives.The Scopeware distributed enterprise model can make use of bothserver-based resources and client-based resources where appropriate.Both types of streams can be used simultaneously and interchangeably.

[0064] Bottom-Up streams are comprised of information collaborationformed by ad-hoc groups of Scopeware clients. A bottom-up stream iscomposed of information created by the clients of a transitory group.Information shared and created by this group is be replicated viapoint-to-point connections (i.e. from client PC to client PC). In thisway, bottom-up groups can form and disperse frequently, and withoutnotification, while its members will still have access to the sharedinformation. FIG. 9 illustrates this configuration.

[0065] Top-Down streams are more permanent, generally moreadministrative streams or collections of information, such ascompany-wide distribution lists, or groups like ‘Accounting’ and‘Development’. In these groups, information is “parked” to the serverfrom the desktop. The server then sends the information to other knownservers. Each client maintains a polling connection to the server toretrieve “parked” documents that have recently arrived from other remoteservers or from local clients. FIG. 10 illustrates this configuration.

[0066] As earlier described, the user interface within the Scopewareproduct portfolio has unique characteristics. The DOM provides certaininformation that allows quick perusal of the information retrievalresults via a proprietary “browse card” or “glance view” which issimilar to an index card that contains data on the underlying IA. Aunique “browse card” or “glance view” is created for each IA. The“browse card” or “glance view” includes metadata for the document, whichis comprised of a title, identification number unique to Scopewaredocument referencing, date/time stamp, and owner information. The“browse card” or “glance view” also presents a thumbnail image of the IAand a summary of the IA contents. Finally, the “browse card” or “glanceview” contains a list of operations appropriate for the IA's applicationthat include, but are not limited to, copy, forward, reply, view, andproperties.

[0067] The “browse card” or “glance view” arrives in the stream of thoseclients that have permission to view the IA. The owner can grant accessto other clients or groups by granting read, write, or aware permissionsthrough the properties of the “browse card” or “glance view.” Permissioncan be granted as granular as an individual-by-individual basis from theDOM, or through predetermined administrative groups via the Scopewareserver.

[0068] The “browse card” or “glance view” is presented in a time-orderedsequence starting in the present going back into the past. The “browsecard” or “glance view” is available in a number of views. The primaryview is the stream. Other formats include a grid, Q, list, andthumbnails. The various views address the client's personal preferencesfor accessing time-ordered content in their most logical way. Theseviews all contain the information presented in a “browse card” or“glance view” but are organized in a different method. Other specializedviews include the address book and calendar.

[0069] An advantage of the “browse card” or “glance view” approach isthe ease of browsing, searching, and retrieving IAs. In the stream view,the “browse card” or “glance view” of each IA are aligned much likecards in a recipe box. For each item, the title and application icon areviewable on the “browse card” or “glance view” in the stream. When theclient passes over the “browse card” or “glance view” in the stream withthe mouse pointer, the full “browse card” or “glance view” is presentedto the client for easy viewing. From the “browse card” or “glance view,”the client can perform any of the aforementioned actions available tothe IA, subject to permission access.

[0070] The disclosed system is suitable for a number of computing modelsservicing multiple clients including a single departmental server model,an enterprise server model, a distributed enterprise model, and apeer-to-peer model (absent a dedicated Scopeware server or commonserver). In addition, the software enables wireless computingindependent of or in conjunction with any or all of the aforementionedmodels. Wireless clients include WAP enabled phones, PDAs, Pocket PCs,and other similarly capable devices capable of receiving andtransmitting data across a network. All of the Scopeware ImplementationModels make use of the components previously discussed, providingconsistent interface available across different computing topologies,from monolithic single servers to peer-to-peer collaboration.

[0071] Access to the IA contained in the Scopeware repository can beachieved through two methods. The first method of access is through thethin-client method. The thin-client method utilizes a web browser, suchas Microsoft's Internet Explorer or Netscape's Navigator, on the clientdevice to gain access to the Scopeware repository residing on theScopeware server. The second method of access is the desktop-clientmethod. The desktop-client method involves a local installation ofScopeware on the client device. The client device is then capable ofperforming the storage, retrieval, extraction, and processing of IAs asthey are introduced to the Scopeware repository. All the models belowcan utilize either method of access to the Scopeware repository, howeverthe distributed enterprise and peer-to-peer models are optimized withthe desktop-client method.

[0072] Single Server Model. A single server model makes content on oneScopeware server available to any client connected to the departmentalserver. The Scopeware software creates a unique DOM that represents tothe user interface the relevant details of the IA physically stored bythe server or client. Thus, when a client connected to the networkrequests access to and retrieval of IAs through Scopeware, the clientcan view all documents contained within the network that satisfy thequery parameters and access restrictions regardless of the document'snative application. The documents available include those stored locallyby the client, those saved to a central storage location, and thosestored by peer clients with Doc Feeders connected to the shared server.

[0073] Enterprise Server Model. In an enterprise server model, wheremultiple Scopeware servers are installed, federated access to andretrieval of IAs across the network is enabled. In federated informationsharing, a client asks one Scopeware server for IAs that may reside onit or one of many connected peer Scopeware servers. In this model, theactual IA may reside on any network-connected client, the Scopewareserver, or a centralized data storage location. Transparent to theclient, the Scopeware servers shuffle the retrieval request and accessrestrictions to present a single, coherent stream to the client via thepresentation architecture previously discussed (within the originalpatent document).

[0074] Distributed Enterprise Model. A distributed enterprise modelutilizes the clients for storage, retrieval, and processing of IAs.Through the use of directory monitoring agents, similar to networkagents, the physical location of an IA need not be on the Scopewareserver, but rather can reside with any client. The Scopeware serverstake on a secondary role as administration servers and content parkinglots. This model pushes the processing tasks to the clients while usingthe servers to shuttle IAs throughout the enterprise. The indexingengine, thumbnailing engine, lightweight storage database will be basedat the clients.

[0075] Taking Scopeware beyond distributed networking and the federatedarchitecture—into a more distributed approach will be straightforward,given the way that the system has been designed. Key elements of thenext stage of deployment are distributed document processing andscalable server arrays.

[0076] Distributed document processing consists of two differentapproaches. First, when information was created physically on a desktopmachine, but was part of a larger application and intended for storageon a server (rather than on the desktop), the Desktop facilities coulddo the document extraction, indexing, thumbnailing, etc., and post theresults to the Scopeware Server. Second, a Scopeware Server that washanded a document (perhaps from an OCR process or from a central emailapplication) could hand the document off to an available ScopewareDesktop for the same processing. These strategies relieve the processingload on the Scopeware Server and leave it free to focus on handlingsearches and stream integration, allowing a given Scopeware Server tohandle a much larger user load.

[0077] When an organization needs to support central processing of largedocument bases—and needs the reliability, accessibility and security ofa centralized architecture—Scopeware Servers will support deployment ina novel architecture we have named RAIS—a redundant array of inexpensiveservers.

[0078] In this architecture, imagine a square array of desktopmachines—call each one a “sub-server.” The array as a whole comprisesthe Scopeware Server. (This does not require wiring together an actualarray or cluster; any interconnect such as a Ethernet sub-net or evenHTTP over a broader network will work.) In these arrays, columns ofservers provide redundancy for storage, while rows (within columns)provide redundant points of distribution.

[0079] To post document D, one copy of D is sent to a sub-server in eachcolumn of the array. To replicate everything five times such that losingany data requires the loss of five sub-servers, five columns are used.The number of columns in the array is managed to support exactly thedegree of replication (and redundancy) desired. The write processes canbe managed in a number of ways to ensure that the different rows in thecolumns are balanced.

[0080] To send a polling message or search request (“give me all thelatest stuff”), a request is sent to each sub-server in one column (notethat the means to do this transparently to the user is an extension ofthe federated search technology). Each column of sub-servers absorbs onecopy of every posting (because any write has gone into at least one rowof the column); therefore, all the sub-servers in any one columncollectively have copies of everything. Just a “replication factor,” ischosen for data redundancy, a “distribution factor” is chosen forresponsiveness and for data management, representing the number of rowsin any column. To get ten small responses to a search request instead ofone big response, or to distribute the total data-storage burden overten machines instead of one, the array is implemented with tensub-servers in every column.

[0081] The entire “Server” can be run with only one row (resulting inreplication, but no distribution) or with only one column (resulting indistribution but no replication). In the limit, row size=column size=1,and the effect is to have a single conventional server.

[0082] This approach to distributed processing, scalability andreliability for large applications allows arbitrary sets of “smaller”computers (single/dual processor, inexpensive memory and disk storage)to be used in place of very large, expensive machines. This allows theapplication platform to be designed to the reliability and accessrequirements of the particular application, and then scaledincrementally (by adding more small machines into the array) as theactual application grows in terms of users served or informationmanaged.

[0083] Distributed document processing and server arrays will giveScopeware almost infinite scalability while maintaining compatibilitywith early solutions or architectures. In addition to adding greaterreliability, this architecture will support very large informationprocessing applications. This will allow enterprise-scale, top-downapplications—inbound support/sales email handling, customer service oreven IRS-scale tax document processing.

[0084] Distributed document processing (with Scopeware Desktop) could becombined with either a “conventional” (1 processor array) ScopewareServer or with a more powerful array. This will allow organizations tocreate departmental or workgroup level solutions that can grow intoenterprise applications if necessary.

[0085] At the same time, the system will allow users themselves tocreate self-organizing applications based on their specific and currentneeds. Ad hoc teams can create collaborative spaces that crossorganizational boundaries if necessary. These applications can leverageeither Scopeware Desktops or departmental-level Scopeware Servers.

[0086] Because the system has the architecture and capacity to supportany level of centralization or decentralization concurrently,applications and their platforms can be engineered centrally or grownorganically, and they can be tailored to the needs of their users andthe organization on an ongoing basis.

[0087] Peer-to-Peer Model. The peer-to-peer (P2P) model allows multipleclients to share IA directly without the use of a dedicated Scopewareserver. The P2P model allows for pure ad hoc collaboration amongScopeware clients. For example, a client can share IA via the Internetwith identified Scopeware clients that have permission to access IA fromthe client, and vice versa. This is similar to the distributedenterprise environment except the dedicated Scopeware server has beenremoved as a storage, retrieval, and connection mechanism. Instead,Scopeware clients will connect point-to-point with other Scopewareclients through a general network connection such as the Internet.

[0088] Using P2P, a client can create a virtual shared stream that looksas though it is stored on a server but is in fact stored only by manyclients. Historically, all clients would need access to a shared filefolder on a common server in order to share information. With Scopeware,clients can share information that is located on each other's device andare not restricted to a common server or single physical storagelocation. To illustrate, five clients of Scopeware want to create ashared virtual stream to support a project. They call their group “TeamOne.” Then, when any member of “Team One” posts a document to his or herstream, and marks it “readable by Team One,” the system automaticallysends a copy to every Scopeware client on the “Team One” list. EachScopeware client receiving this document pops it into its client's localstream. Thus information created by a client who is a member of “TeamOne” (and flagged for Team One by the owner) winds up in the localstream of every member of Team One, whether the post is a document, anevent (team meeting), task, or contact. It's as if he had sent hisposting to a “client” server, and then everyone had polled the server,but in fact there's no server.

1. A method of operating an enterprise information management systemcomprising at least one server and a number of personal computersselectively communicating with each other comprising: creating documentobject models comprising selected information from and about informationassets of diverse types, created by diverse software, said documentobject models having a consistent structure; displaying browse cardsrelated to respective ones of the information assets in a time-orderedstream, together with glance views related to the document object modelsof the respective displayed documents, said glance views being displayedessentially in real time in response to passing a cursor over respectiveones of the browse cards.